Rancher Tells of Bomb Defendant's Comments

By JO THOMAS

Published: November 6, 1997

DENVER, Nov. 5—
A Kansas rancher told a Federal Court jury today that Terry L. Nichols told him in late 1994 that ''the Government needed to be overthrown.''

The testimony was the first time that anyone had said he heard such anti-Government statements from Mr. Nichols, who is on trial here on charges of murder and conspiracy in the Oklahoma City bombing, which killed 168 people on April 19, 1995.

The rancher, Timothy Patrick Donahue, said he hired Mr. Nichols in March 1994 to work on his 15,000-acre ranch in east-central Kansas. Mr. Donahue said Mr. Nichols ''often talked about the Government being too big and too powerful, that they'd abused their power and raided the compound at Waco and killed some innocent people.''

Three or four weeks before Mr. Nichols quit his job on Sept. 30, 1994, Mr. Donahue testified, Mr. Nichols said ''he felt the Government needed to be overthrown, and Thomas Jefferson had said it was our duty to overthrow the Government when it did get too powerful.''

Mr. Nichols's co-defendant, Timothy J. McVeigh, was convicted of the same charges in June and was sentenced to death.

Mr. Nichols and Mr. McVeigh, who were friends when they were in the Army, are accused of bombing the Oklahoma City Federal Building as a reprisal for the deadly Federal raid on the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Tex., in 1993. Prosecutors have also said the two men hoped their act would ignite a wider armed revolt against the Government.

In his testimony today, Mr. Donahue said he had seen Mr. McVeigh twice at the ranch but did not know his name until he saw him on television after the bombing. Mr. Donahue also said Mr. Nichols had told him that he ''had a friend named Tim that was in Desert Storm, and the Government planted a chip in him that monitored his whereabouts.''

Earlier today, prosecutors introduced writings found in a cardboard box at the Herington, Kan., home where Mr. Nichols was living at the time of the bombing. An agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation who found these writings, William K. West, said they were identical to certain clippings Mr. McVeigh was carrying at the time he was arrested.

''There is no longer any doubt the U.S. government has declared open warfare on the American people,'' a photocopied article found in both places declared.

''The enemies of freedom,'' the article continued, must know ''we will physically fight! They must know we will not shrink from spilling their blood.''

Lawyers for the defense countered that there was nothing unusual or incriminating in the sentiments expressed in some of the literature, which included several quotations from Thomas Jefferson.